I consider this nonsense. There were tons of minutes for him to play, a shooting coach going to help him in person and the like - Sergio is just allergic to defense and is not a good scorer. You can only spend so much time and effort to fit a square peg in a round hole. Sergio does not work in a half-court system and the Blazers are built around a Roy/Oden/LMA foundation - where 2 of these players excel in the half-court and one is good either way. You can see that in years to come Portland's offense is going to be built around an inside-out model taking advantage of Oden's physical presence and Roy's ability to break the defenses from the perimeter in half-court sets. You adjust the support roster to the stars, not the other way around - and Sergio, quite frankly, is not a star.
Call it intuition, blind faith, nonsense, whatever, but I'll stick to it. When he comes back to RG and lights us up, I'll be vindicated.
This seems odd. Almost as if this news was not meant to be out until draft day. The article is dated June 25, 2009 which is almost three weeks away. The article also says the deal was agreed to 20 days ago. Is that twenty days from today or from June 25, 2009? Very odd. Also, since they say the trade can not be announced until the day of the draft, that would mean the 8th pick is involved. The Knicks do not have their pick next year, so they must pick at 8 this year. After they pick they can trade the player. Sign and trades are not an option as they can not be done until mid July. That would go against the article saying the deal would be announced draft night. Portland drafted Rush last season, so inclusion of our 24th pick alone would not cause a delay. Just by working through the steps it leads to inclusion of the 8th pick in my estimation, which would mean a larger deal. Maybe taking on some crap contract.
I'll believe it when I see it. I wouldn't be surprised if the Blazers pretty much brought the same lineup on to the court as they had last year.
Notes: 2nd Year Salary for Pick #8: $2.22 Mil 2nd Year Salary for Pick #24: $1.00 Mil 2nd Year Salary for Pick #33: $0 Guaranteed Salary Sergio Salary after 2009-10: $0 if they don't pick up option ($2.8 Mil if they do) So, if the NYK trade #8 for Sergio, #24, #33, they can save $1.2 Mil if they dump Sergio (for LeBron). If they can't get LBJ (or other uber FA), they could give Sergio a qualifying offer. Not sure, I'd do this if I were the NYK, but remember the last line of the summary article: The trade is being driven by the COACH, not the GM. Of course, other players (such as David Lee/Travis Outlaw) could be involved. Links: Rookie Scale NBA Salaries: Portland Draft Selection Order
When he comes back to the RG and lights us up will be the day hell freezes over or he is the starting PG of Real Madrid playing an exhibition game against our summer-league roster playing European rules... Sergio does not light people up, especially people that play some defense. He is a backup in the right system - and there is a chance that this system will be in NY (He will not be a starting PG there - because D'Antoni's PGs need to be able to score).
Sergio is going to rock it big time under D'Antoni. I can't wait to steal him in my fantasy draft next year. He will be a stats monster.
Well then we can mark you down in the chronicles of basketball history as being right if it happens. The Chroniclers of basketball history know all, and quake at your prophecy of Sergio destruction!!!!
There would be a nice sort of symmetry there, as Rodriguez and Telfair are/were very similar sorts of players for Portland. Very young point guard prospects with exciting passing talent, ability to penetrate, inability to finish, shoot or defend. Telfair got Portland a high pick that ended up becoming Roy (via Foye). Maybe Sergio will have similar impact. Of course, Portland took back the very bad LaFrentz contract in that deal. So perhaps Portland will be taking back a bad contract in this deal, too.
I wouldn't get too excited there. He doesn't shoot a high FG percentage, doesn't make too many 3s, doesn't rebound, doesn't steal or block shots. Unless your league is all about assists.
I wouldn't be at all surpised to see Sergio score a lot and get flashy assists (although coupled with dumb turnovers). Quite possibly, he might become a good player to have on a fantasy basketball team. But I'd be very surprised to see him become any kind of defender or "glue" guy who makes his team better and helps it to win.
If we take Curry with the #8 there would be another symmetry - as he is a guy that is athletic but not too athletic and people question his impact at the next level as they questioned Roy's. I would be really surprised if this really happens - because Curry sure seems like a match made in heaven to D'Antoni's system...
If the #8 pick is involved, Curry would be my guess. Bigger contract, Curry has no real hope of being useful in D'Antoni's system and he's one of those dark-clouds-over-the-franchise type of players, in terms of image. There were rumours earlier in the season of New York hoping to peddle Curry off on Portland, as I recall.
One of the problems with that is we don't have any big expiring, or attractive contracts to give NY for Curry unless we give up on a guy like Joel which I doubt. And we can't trade Miles' salary I don't think.
Maybe, but I don't think Sergio alone is enough for the #8. And I don't see another package that makes sense for both teams. It sounded from the article that there's a deal in place that would go down on draft day. If that's true I don't believe it can involve Lee because of his upcoming RFA status.
